A Promise to Restore Civil Liberties Is Slow to Become Reality in Honduras

MEXICO CITY — The de facto president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, appeared to have bowed to pressure at home and from abroad on Monday, saying that he would lift his order suspending civil liberties.

Since then, he has been in no hurry to keep his promise.

Mr. Micheletti spent the week consulting with the Supreme Court and other parts of the government about the decree, which his government announced on Sunday night. But while he has been discussing lifting the order, his security forces have been busy enforcing it.

Early Monday morning, they shut down two broadcasters sympathetic to the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya.

On Wednesday, they dislodged 55 farmers who had been occupying the National Agrarian Institute since Mr. Zelaya was deposed in a coup on June 28. A judge ordered 38 of the protesters held on charges of sedition.

Under the decree, which restricts freedom of speech and bans unauthorized demonstrations, the protest marches by supporters of Mr. Zelaya have all but stopped. About 200 Zelaya supporters demonstrated in front of the United States Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Friday, watched by 300 police officers and soldiers, the newspaper El Heraldo reported.

On Friday, an advance team from the Organization of American States arrived in Tegucigalpa to prepare for a visit next Thursday by Latin American foreign ministers, the latest effort to resume negotiations under international mediation. Mr. Micheletti’s government initially turned away all but one member of the team when it first tried to arrive last Sunday.

Meanwhile, the auxiliary bishop of Tegucigalpa, Juan José Pineda, has been shuttling back and forth between Mr. Micheletti and Mr. Zelaya, who has taken refuge in the Brazilian Embassy, in a separate effort to establish conditions for talks.

Mr. Zelaya’s allies accused Mr. Micheletti of stalling on lifting the decree as he tries to dismantle the network of Zelaya supporters.

“He has in his hands a repressive weapon to try to demobilize the resistance,” Rafael Alegría, the leader of the farmworkers’ union, said of Mr. Micheletti in an interview with Radio Globo on Friday. Radio Globo, which was closed and taken off the air on Monday, is broadcasting over the Internet.

“How are we going to develop a transparent and frank dialogue in the middle of open repression?” he asked.

Mr. Micheletti has not explained why it has taken so long to restore civil liberties, as he had promised to do. When he met with the Supreme Court on Thursday, he said again that the decree would be lifted “as soon as possible.”

Under his order, the decree would be in effect for 45 days, ending just two weeks before the presidential election, which is scheduled for Nov. 29. The United States has said that it is unlikely to recognize the outcome of the election under those conditions.

That is a concern for the candidates, who fear that the international aid that was cut off after the coup will not resume once a new president takes office in January. Mr. Micheletti is not running in the election.

The negative response to the decree provided the first sign that some members of the political, military and business alliance that backed the coup are beginning to become uncomfortable with Mr. Micheletti’s actions. Legislators from all the political parties in Congress told him that they would not approve the decree, as required under the law.

“We want the government to be moderate,” Adolfo J. Facussé, a prominent business leader, said in an interview this week. “That’s why we didn’t like the decree.”

A delegation of Republican members of the United States Congress visited Tegucigalpa on Friday to offer support to Mr. Micheletti. The Obama administration has called for the restoration of Mr. Zelaya and it has suspended all military and some economic aid to the de facto government. Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, said that calling Mr. Zelaya’s ouster a coup was “ill informed and baseless.”

Mr. DeMint and three other legislators traveling with him planned to meet with members of the Supreme Court, which backed Mr. Zelaya’s ouster, as well as with the presidential candidates.

They also met with Mr. Micheletti, who told them that he would lift the decree and restore civil liberties by Monday at the latest, Wesley Denton, Mr. DeMint’s spokesman, told The Associated Press on Friday night.

A version of this article appears in print on October 3, 2009, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: A Promise to Restore Civil Liberties Is Slow to Become Reality in Honduras. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe